Both passengers and employees say good riddance to those old wool-fabric seats. In their place are vinyl cushions. From the Examiner story,

"Wool seats made a lot of sense in the early '70s [when BART began operating]. They were meant to provide an airline-type of experience," said Jim Allison, a BART spokesman. "But now that we've seen ridership grow, we need to have a more robust, cleanable seating material that ... keeps the cost down as well."

The seats would get stained and smelly and gross, and they'd be cleaned by removing them and sending them to a dry cleaner for $6000 per railcar. The new seats are much easier to clean; they can be wiped off. They will also likely last longer, about 10 years instead of the 3 years for the old seats. It costed about $9000 per railcar to by new seats, about $6 million for BART"s 669-car fleet. BART's maintenance teams have been replacing the seats since early 2012, and they completed the job on December 30 of last year.

Next up is the floors. They have been carpet, and they will be replaced by a linoleum-like composite material by this summer.

So both these stylistic indulgences have flopped. Something like BART's original cab cars, which stuck outward and could not allow passengers to pass. BART's more recent cab cars have been flat-ended, allowing passengers to pass in midtrain-car fashion. BART's maintenance teams have also removed many of the original cabs, making midtrain cars out of them. BART's replacement railcars will also have flat-end cab cars.

Back in planning days it was thought that it might be necessary to have carpets, upholstered seats, and enough capacity for most passengers to be seated in order to entice people out of their cars. It was not a given 40 years ago that Californians would take to mass (shudder) transportation in the way that they have.

ExCon90 wrote:Back in planning days it was thought that it might be necessary to have carpets, upholstered seats, and enough capacity for most passengers to be seated in order to entice people out of their cars. It was not a given 40 years ago that Californians would take to mass (shudder) transportation in the way that they have.

and in what way have they really taken to it? BART service still runs at miserable 20-minute intervals on weekends.

lensovet wrote:and in what way have they really taken to it? BART service still runs at miserable 20-minute intervals on weekends.

Headways are in the eye of the beholder, and where you happen to be catching the trains. There's five BART lines. In most of the BART system, there's two or more lines sharing the corridor. Where there are two lines, your 20 minute headways could be 10 minutes. Where there are four lines sharing the corridor, your 20 minute headways could be 5 minutes.

It's only beyond where the corridor splits into different individual lines where headways become the poorest. In the larger cities, the inner cities served by BART, like San Fancisco, Oakland, and Berkerly, the different corridors have already joined, so headways between them are still fairly good.

Not only that, 20-minute headways represent a dazzling frequency compared to what existed 40 years ago outside of all but a few major cities. 20-minute headways to places like Walnut Creek, Concord, and Pittsburg were unheard of. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure what public transportation even existed to those places.)

A rough guide to the transit situation in 1937, upon which some bart lines have been built

With respect to 20 minute headways, while that is miserable for a subway, Bart is at it's far reaches more of a commuter railway like the LIRR. Only way you're going to get better frequencies is going to be automation like Vancouver

When the project began BART used a spray-on hard rubber type surface but then later switched to rolled out vinyl. Both options can be found on our current fleet. The new floors complement our new vinyl seat covers. The project to replace all wool seats with easier to clean material was completed in December of last year. The Fleet of the Future will also have easy to clean floors and seats. ...

So nice not to have stuck to anything this past week. Can't decide which was worse - mysterious damp and gummy substances on BART seats or getting holes poked in clothing by the torn wicker upholstery in New Jersey's old E-L electric MU's.

lensovet wrote:and in what way have they really taken to it? BART service still runs at miserable 20-minute intervals on weekends.

Headways are in the eye of the beholder, and where you happen to be catching the trains. There's five BART lines. In most of the BART system, there's two or more lines sharing the corridor. Where there are two lines, your 20 minute headways could be 10 minutes. Where there are four lines sharing the corridor, your 20 minute headways could be 5 minutes.

It's only beyond where the corridor splits into different individual lines where headways become the poorest. In the larger cities, the inner cities served by BART, like San Fancisco, Oakland, and Berkerly, the different corridors have already joined, so headways between them are still fairly good.

except that there are zero corridors that have four lines sharing them on weekends, which is when 20-minute headways are in effect. the only corridors that share anything on weekends are MacArthur→Bay Fair and Daly City.

LIRR runs 5-minute intervals virtually every day on the inner core of NYC. I know, because flying into JFK and going to NYC is night and day compared to flying into SFO.